Splinter
by Evil Shall Giggle
Summary: Long shifts, sore feet, snotty aliens, awkward dinners, and forgotten combadges... this calls for a little JC!


Captain Kathryn Janeway's foot hurt. A lot.

She leaned back in her chair, gritting her teeth and wishing for her ready room, but going there would mean walking there, and walking there would mean more pain.

She wasn't quite sure what was wrong with it. It had just been a bit annoying this morning when she'd reported for duty, but it had grown consistently worse as the day had progressed. Now, she gazed as secretively as she could at the clock on the flip-up consol between her and Chakotay and wished for the final two minutes of torture to be over.

It hadn't been a very busy shift. Engineering had had a few problems with incorporating the new dilithium stores they'd gathered the day before, causing several other problems with computer systems that had cropped up repeatedly over the hours. Even now, a couple of techs were wrestling with Ops, trying to stop it from switching to Omega Alert mode.

At last! She turned around happily as the turbolift doors hissed open, emitting the delta-shift crew. She stood, grimacing internally, and handed over command, then did her best not to limp her escape. Tuvok and Tom managed to get inside the lift before the doors closed, and she mentally cursed. With them here, she couldn't order the computer to take her to sickbay without being questioned on her health and, in all likelihood, lectured on taking care of herself.

So, she called out her quarter's deck and sighed softly, shifting her weight to her left leg and staring distractedly at the bottom of the doors. Tom rocked back on his heels and puffed out his cheeks. "Long shift, huh?" he commented. Janeway could practically sense Tuvok's long-suffering raised eyebrow as he bit back a logical retort with practiced ease. "Captain?" Tom questioned.

She looked up at him. "Hm? Oh, yes, long shift." The lift came to a stop and the doors opened. "Ah, my stop. See you tomorrow."

"Good night," they said in unison, and she had to smile at the dissonance between their tones.

Finally, safe in her quarters, she sagged onto the couch, pulling her boot and sock off and twisting her foot around to see just what it was that had made her day so miserable. There was a large red area surrounding a black center, that, when prodded experimentally, made her hiss in surprised pain. It looked like an insect bite, and that it hurt so much was worrisome.

Gingerly slipping her boot back on, she stood and started off toward sickbay, but before she'd gotten more than two steps, her combadge chirped. "Captain Janeway to the bridge."

She stopped in the middle of the hallway and groaned, earning a strange look from a passing crewmember. "Captain?" he questioned.

She waved him off. "Long day, Ensign," she said, turning around and heading for the turbolift, "Long day."

* * *

When she arrived on the bridge, she was greeted with the intensely unwelcome sight of a snooty-looking alien on the viewscreen. Harry Kim, standing in the middle of the bridge and apparently trying to reason with him, looked around thankfully when Janeway stepped out of the lift. "Captain!" he exclaimed, sounding just a little _too_ overjoyed to see her. 

"Yes, Ensign," she said, coming down to stand beside him.

He spoke quietly so that the alien wouldn't be able to overhear. "Captain, this is Magistrate Pul. He's a representative of the Nomoan Government, which owns the system we passed through yesterday."

"Where we got the dilitium," she guessed.

Harry nodded. "They've noticed that we took it, and they want to be compensated."

_Great_, Janeway thought. "We need that dilithium," she muttered, more to herself than Harry, then addressed the alien. "Magistrate Pul?" He looked down at her, glands on his temples flaring. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway. Ensign Kim tells me there was a misunderstanding regarding some dilithium crystals?"

"Misnderstanding?" Pul echoed huffily, the glands flaring again. "Misunderstanding? No misunderstanding. You are _thieves_! You came, visited _our_ worlds, stole _our _crystals!"

"We weren't aware the world was owned by anyone," Janeway said, raising her hands slightly in a gesture of placation. "If there's anything we could offer you as compensation…"

Pul cocked his head and Janeway had to stop herself from smiling triumphantly. "Compensation? Perhaps you have… a store of chromium?"

Janeway grinned; _chromium? Now _that_ I can do._ "Say, twenty grams?"

Pul's eyes widened. "Twenty grams!" He cleared his throat and put on what she could only guess was a miffed expression, "Twenty grams? Is that all you can offer us?"

"Well," she said slowly, "I suppose we could up it to twenty-five, but that's out final offer."

Pul's head bobbed on its long neck. "Deal. You transport it aboard in ten minutes, and we leave."

She motioned to Crewman White at Ops. "Already done. Nice doing business with you."

"Good journey," Pul wished her, and then cut the communication off.

Janeway looked around at her bridge crew, bade them goodnight, and disappeared back into the lift, leaning with a long sigh of relief against one of the walls.

Chakotay surprised her several decks down, and she snapped back to standing straight, praying he hadn't noticed. He had. "Are you alright, Kathryn?" he inquired.

"Fine," she said, smiling for credibility. He would be even more certain than Tom and Tuvok to lecture her on taking care of herself. _Go away, just go away… let me go to sickbay in peace… _As subtly as she could, she put her weight solely on her left leg. "Where are you going?" she asked, changing the topic and, hopefully, distracting him.

"Back to my quarters, actually," he said, and she nearly laughed. _Just gets better and better,_ she thought bitterly. "What about you?"

"My quarters," she sighed. _Sickbay after, then._

The doors slid open and they both stepped out, headed for their neighbouring quarters. "Are you sure you're alright?" he persisted.

She looked up at him. "Yes, of course. Why?"

"You're limping," he pointed out. She slowed and sighed for the umpteenth time. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "I think it's an insect bite of some kind. I was actually on my way to sickbay to get it checked out."

"An insect bite?" he questioned, "How would you get an insect bite here?"

"Remember that planet we visited a few days ago to do some trading with the locals?" He nodded. "It's my best guess that I picked it up there. Remembering last time I had any contact with insect bites, I think it's best I let the Doctor have a look."

"The Doctor's offline," he told her. "He has been all afternoon. I just came back from talking to Vorik about it. Apparently it has something to do with the problems they've been having with the dilithium."

"Great," she muttered, "I don't suppose you have a medical tricorder on you that I could borrow?"

He held up his hands, "Sorry. But I could have a look at it for you, if you want. I've had my share of experience with bug bites."

"No, it's alright," she said, pressing a finger against the door panel for identification. "I'll get him to look at it tomorrow."

"As you said, though," he insisted, "remember what happened last time we got bitten by insects?"

Of course she did. She'd almost ended up spending the rest of her life on some backwater planet with him. She also remembered what he'd told her on that backwater planet, and what she'd come so painfully close to allowing to happen. But, he had a point, and she was sure that he knew more about insect bites than she did, and so, still with some reluctance, she held out her arm for him to precede her into her quarters.

"You might as well stay for supper, if you dare," she said, going over to the replicator for a cup of coffee. She held it up after taking a sip. "But don't worry, I'll replicate it, I promise. Want anything to drink?"

"Water, please," he requested.

She brought it over to him and sat on the couch, patting the seat next to her. "Alright, let's get this over with, shall we?" she quipped, feeling, as she began to carefully remove her boot, suddenly absurdly _shy_ about the whole thing. She gave herself a firm mental slap and told herself to grow up, and propped her complaining foot up on her other knee so Chakotay could see the bite.

He set his now half-empty water on the table and turned his attention to her wounded foot, taking it gently with one hand and running his thumb over the reddened area. She flinched despite herself. "It's that sensitive?" he questioned. She quirked her lips a bit and nodded. "You know, I think that's a splinter, not a bite."

"A splinter?" she raised her eyebrows. "I haven't had a splinter since I was ten years old!"

He shrugged, "You could've picked one up on the boardwalk on that planet. They did insist that we all be barefoot."

"Splinters don't hurt as much as that thing does," she pointed out.

"It looks infected," he told her, "And considering that that planet was almost a week ago, it's been in there a while. If you have tweezers I can take it out for you."

Despite her childhood self that stubbornly told her to just wait and it would come out by itself, she made to get up to fetch the tweezers from the bathroom, but he caught her arm and pulled her back down. "I'll get them," he said firmly. "Where are they?"

"Second drawer under the sink," she said, relaxing back onto the couch, "in the grey bag."

He vanished for a moment and she heard the contents of a drawer being shifted about, and then he returned with a slight glint of metal in his hand. Her childhood self grimaced.

"Let's see…" he said to himself as he sat back down, taking her foot again. She clenched her teeth together, but it was more painful than she'd anticipated. A small gasp escaped her and he apologized. "I think that's all of it. Feel any better?"

"No," she said honestly, "But thank you. Now, dinner?" She stood, perhaps a little too quickly, and her poor foot refused to take any further abuse. It shot pain up to her knee, which gave out as if it'd been kicked from behind. Off-balance, she would've toppled backwards but for the strong form just rising from the couch that provided an unintentional buffer.

She ended up seated on his lap, surprised and uncharacteristically flushed. She looked up at him to apologize, already disentangling herself from him, but he caught her before she could get anywhere and she found herself trapped. "I…" she trailed off, struggling to remember how to speak. She was leaning toward him as though magnetized, unable to escape as she'd done every other time they'd come close to moving beyond friendship, and his hands had crept to her upper arms, holding her gently.

At last, she managed to squeak out a 'dinner', and the spell broke. He released her and she stepped quickly, if delicately, to the kitchen replicator. "What would you like?" she asked, putting a hand to her face to see if her cheeks were as hot as they felt. They were. "Salad? Soup? Ah, that's it. How about cream of mushroom?"

He nodded mutely, getting up slowly from the couch to stand beside the table as she ordered two bowls and two small glasses of wine to go with it. Her voice hesitated on the wine, wondering if, given the circumstances, wine might carry certain unwanted implications. Deciding that it didn't—they had it at each of their weekly dinners, after all, and it had never been an issue—she brought the food to the table and sat down.

The meal was a predominately silent affair. Janeway tried once or twice to make conversation, but the attempts died after being hit back and forth a few times. Finally, as she finished and set her spoon down, she began with a straightforward address of what had just happened.

"Chakotay—" she started.

"Kathryn—" he began at the same time. They both stopped and looked at each other. She smiled slowly and he chuckled.

"We need to put this behind us," she said gently, her hand finding his on the table.

He nodded. "Exactly what I was going to say." She nodded as well and smiled again. He stood, "I'll take the dishes, save you having to stand."

"Thank you," she said, leaning back in her chair to let him pick up her bowl. As the replicator whirred to recycle the bowls, she finished the rest of her wine and handed the glass to him as well.

That done, he made his way back into the main area of her quarters, picking up his uniform jacket from where he'd put it down and tucking it under his arm. She realized with a start that she hadn't seen him take it off, nor had she noticed that she'd also removed hers. She caught sight of it lying draped over the back of a chair. "I'd better go," he said, "I have some reports to go over."

She stood as well, using her counter to take some of the weight off her foot as she joined him in the main room. She perched on the arm of a chair and nodded. "So do I. I'll see you tomorrow, then." The awkwardness was returning—she could practically feel the air thickening with it.

He gave her another smile. "Good night," he said, and turned, vanishing out the door. She deflated a little once the doors slid closed and the familiar emptiness pressed on her, glancing around the room. Her gaze fell on something small and silver poking out from between the cushions of the couch. She frowned, curious, and went over to pull it out. It was a combadge. Hers? She checked her uniform jacket. No, hers was still attached to it. It must've fallen off Chakotay's when he took it off.

She would have to return it, wouldn't she? That was the proper thing to do. She ran her fingers over it absently, then tucked it into her pocket and pulled her boots on, reasoning with her foot that this was the last journey it would have to make today and then it could rest, so there was really no reason to hurt anymore, was there? And besides, it was only a few steps to Chakotay's quarters.

Her foot disagreed, but she did her best, as always, not to limp. She'd had worse. She could deal.

Chakotay looked surprised to see her standing outside as the door slid open, but he invited her in nonetheless. Her heart thudded as she realized what this seemed like, so she lost no time in digging into her pocket and pulling his combadge out. She handed it to him. "It was in the couch," she said by way of explanation, and left again before they felt they had to start another horribly uncomfortable conversation.

Once back in her quarters, she paused, just inside the door, staring blankly out the window. Why had everything suddenly become so… so different? They'd had close calls before. They'd _lived together_ for three months, for Pete's sake! But their friendship had never felt so on edge as it did now.

When the door chime sounded, she nearly jumped out of her skin. "Come in," she called, turning around to greet whoever it was. Her bet was on Seven, looking for some late night advice on humanity and the nature of individuality.

It was Chakotay. "Don't tell me I forgot my combadge too," she said dryly.

And, before she had time to think, much less react, he was kissing her. He took the short step between them and pulled her to him in one swift movement, catching her head and bringing her lips to his.

Surprised didn't even begin to cover it. Still tingling from the adrenaline triggered by the door bell, her body was suddenly pressed against him, all the walls and borders she'd built up between them shattered, and the sensation shot little fireworks of joy out her fingertips.

It took her a heartbeat to manage to think straight enough to respond, to bring her hands up and grab the back of his neck, to stagger backwards into her quarters, away from the still-open door, to press one hand low against his cheek. Somewhere in a far corner of her mind she was aware that her back had made contact hard with a wall and that one of her legs and curled around his, but as he pulled back just half an inch to let them both breathe, the only thing she knew was that she'd finally come home.

She smiled breathlessly up at him, leaning her forehead against his. "Remind me again why we didn't do this sooner?"

"Protocol," he told her, sliding his fingers into her hair.

"Damn protocol," she whispered against his lips, grinning.

As they backed in the general direction of her bedroom, she reflected that her foot had finally stopped hurting.


End file.
